Alister pulled on their sweater vest nervously as they glanced around at everything.  The eight of them were positioned behind their respective podiums, plus Narwhale's with her portrait, and then there was an empty tenth podium.  Alister didn't blame the designer of the room, though; having an odd number of podiums would be annoying.

"Let's start with what we know," Dawn began, looking towards Amy. "Walk us through what you saw this morning."

Amy took a deep breath before starting. "I wanted to get some protein powder for a shake, so I went to the infirmary because I thought they might have some.  I turned on the light and found Narwhale dead.  There was a syringe in her neck and a note from her on the table.  I flipped out, and that's really all that happened."

"Was that everything out of the ordinary?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah.  Nothing else weird.  And those sleeping pills she was talking about were on the table next to the note."

"So here's what must have happened, then," Tommie jumped in. "Narwhale was traumatized from the idea of murder as well as her DVD, as she said in the note found at the scene, and couldn't take it.  She told everyone that she was going to get sleeping pills and said good night.  But in reality, she wrote a goodbye note and stabbed herself with the syringe."

"Not just that, she took the pills in an effort to lessen the pain, which is why they were out and next to the note," Ash observed. "Maybe she thought that Ace meant if one person died, everyone else would get to leave?"

"Well, if that's what she was thinking, then she was wrong!" Ace giggled. 

"So does that mean that she did kill herself?" Evan questioned. "Did you just confirm it?"

Ace looked at him. "I don't know, did I?"

"It all seems to add up," Alister shrugged.

"It explains the note, the pills, and the syringe.  I don't think anything is unaccounted for," Ash said.

"So, are you all ready to give me your final answer?" Ace leaned forward in their chair.

Alister made eye contact with every player, one by one.  Everyone seemed confident in this answer.  And it made complete sense; especially when it came to Narwhale's character.

"If I may," Dawn spoke, as if reading Alister's mind, "Based on what I had learned during my brief time with Narwhale, she is a very sensitive and empathetic person.  While I was comforting her after she freaked out over her DVD, she talked a lot about how worried she was that someone would act on their emotions and do something bad, and that nobody deserved to be in this position.  I took those words at face value, believing her to just have been blurting things out due to her emotional state.  However, they line up with what was found on her suicide note, so I'm afraid that this is the logical conclusion."

Alister let themself relax a little.  All of the evidence was there.  The case was closed.

Evan was the one to announce it to Ace. "Our final answer is that Narwhale-"

"No."

Everyone immediately turned towards the sudden objection.  Stratus looked from person to person, frowning.

"I assumed that someone else had picked up on it," he said. "But I suppose I'll just have to do it all myself, as I expected."

"What do you mean?" Jax raised an eyebrow.

Stratus eyed him for a moment. "What I mean is that this case was nowhere close to as simple as you all expected."

Ace said nothing, but Alister saw them lean forward even more, intrigued.

"You better start talking, then," Ash said, narrowing their eyes.

A smile played at the corners of Stratus's mouth. "Gladly."

He cleared his throat before starting. "As a scientist, it's always important to understand the bigger picture.  No small detail is irrelevant.  While Narwhale killing herself was certainly plausible, it didn't sit right with me.  Why would she use a syringe to off herself when the more obvious way to go when in an infirmary would be to overdose on medicine?  It would certainly be less painful, that was for sure."

"Couldn't it have just been that the syringe was the first thing she saw?" Evan pointed out.

"Oh, I did consider that," Stratus agreed. "However, I noticed something odd when getting a closer look.  There were small blood spatters on the cabinets in front of her.  This signaled to me that the syringe was not only inserted aggressively, but there also may have been a big of a struggle.  Narwhale certainly did not come across as strong, so her stabbing the needle into her neck- from the back, if I may add- would not have sprayed blood that far.  Therefore, it became clear to me that this 'suicide' was wrong."

"So you're saying that it was a murder?" Tommie's eyes widened.

Stratus nodded. "It most certainly was.  And carefully inspecting the suicide note gave me a suspicion.  But the thing that finally helped me piece together this story was the second bottle of pills Evan happened to stumble across as he left.  It was a bottle of Ibuprofen, which looked nearly identical to the bottle of sleeping pills on the counter."

"If you're so sure about this, then what actually happened?" Alister challenged.  If this crazy turn of events was true, they wanted to make sure they could make sense of it. "Tell us what you think went down."

"Of course." The tallest student seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment. "Around nine-thirty last night, when everyone was going to bed, Narwhale told everyone that she was going to the infirmary.  Shaken from the day's events, she was hoping to find some sleeping medication to assist her in falling asleep.  What she didn't know was that her killer would seize this opportunity and go after her once everyone was in their rooms.  When they arrived, Narwhale was fishing through a cabinet, likely to see what else was in there.  Unsure what to do, Narwhale saw them, and they created a lie that they also wanted sleeping pills.  Narwhale offered to get them some, however, she did not stay true to her word.  She took a similar-looking bottle from the cabinet and gave the pills to the killer.  Not wanting to come off as suspicious, the killer took them, assuming they could trust someone as sweet as Narwhale."

"Why hadn't the killer killed her already?" Amy asked.

Stratus held her gaze. "As far as I know, nobody here is a psychopath.  The killer did not want to kill Narwhale, but as soon as they realized that this interaction could reflect badly, and that Narwhale most definitely could call it a murder attempt if she lived, the killer knew they had no other choice and were in too deep.  They grabbed the syringe from a tray and stabbed Narwhale through the neck as soon as her back was turned.  Once she was dead, they located a drawer with a pen and paper and created a suicide note.  When all of that was done, they left."

"If you somehow happen to be right, then who is it?" Evan spoke up impatiently.

"I'm getting there," Stratus said. "My first clue as to who was responsible came from the first day, when I met Amy-"

"It's not me!" Amy argued, slamming her hands on her podium.

"I wasn't saying it was you."

"Oh." She slumped a bit, relieved.

"Anyways," Stratus continued, "We decided to explore the school together and stumbled across a majority of the group here playing Pictionary, Narwhale included.  This never would have mattered to me had I not noticed something off about the suicide note.  The ink was smudged slightly, in such a way that an ambidextrous person such as myself would have realized something immediately- the writer was left-handed.  However, when Amy and I found the Pictionary game, I clearly remember seeing Narwhale drawing with her right hand."

Alister's jaw dropped.  

Stratus seemed to notice this, his eyes flickering with smug amusement. "In addition to that, side effects of taking a medication without needing it can include dizziness, headaches, nausea, and vomiting.  The killer did, in fact, look rather ill all morning, which certainly helped my case.  And what tied it all together was seeing them use their left hand to draw during Pictionary yesterday, unaware that this could end up being used against them the very next day.  Isn't that right, Ash?"

Upon hearing their name, all eyes moved to Ash.  The person in question shook their head.

"I didn't do it," they said. "I've just been feeling unwell from what's happening.  And how do you know that Narwhale wasn't ambidextrous?"

"I don't.  But if you were to have an alibi last night, then we can call it quits and say that it was a suicide." At Ash's silence, Stratus added, "That's what I thought."

"I didn't do it!" they repeated, gripping their podium to the point where their knuckles turned white.

"Well?  What do you all want to believe?  That this little kiddo offed herself... or that she was offed by the Ultimate Analyst?" Ace spoke, startling Alister in remembering that they were still there.

Alister looked over at Stratus.  Everything he'd said added up.  He looked incredibly confident in his words, too.  As much as they didn't want to believe it... maybe it was a murder.  They looked around, exchanged looks with everyone in the room, and sighed.

"Sorry, Ash," they mumbled.

Evan turned to face Ace. "We've come to the agreement that Ash killed Narwhale."

Ace clapped their hands. "And everyone is on board with it?  Besides Ash, obviously?"

Upon seeing that everyone agreed, they whistled. "Well, you're correct!  Ash is guilty!"

Ash bowed their head. "I didn't want to.  My DVD... it said that my family would die if I didn't follow the rules.  I needed to get back to them... to make sure they were okay.  And you're right, I nearly backed out.  But seeing that I was no longer able to without consequence..."

"Boo-hoo!  Enough of your silly little sob story!  Iiiiiit's punishment time!" Ace hit a large red button in front of them with a gavel. 

***

(1686 words)

As I'm publishing this, almost all of the execution has been completed.  I'm on the last little bit :)

I'm willing to guess none of y'all read closely- I hinted at Ash being the killer very subtly during the last two chapters ;) 

(tho if you do go back and read PLEASE tag your comments with "SPOILERS" in case others want to read without it being spoiled :))

Anywhoooo thats it rn